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Top Gear Australia

Top Gear Australia – Series 1, Episode 8

Top Gear Australia - Series 1, Episode 8

The final episode of Top Gear Australia Series 1 has just gone to air. Tonight’s episode started with a great concept, ‘The Ultimate Drive’. Pick your ideal car, and add some truly great driving roads. The lads headed to Tasmania, including a closed road run on a Targa Tasmania special stage. Charlie in a Porsche 911 Turbo, Warren behind the wheel of an Aston Martin DB9, and, finally, Steve in a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera. The footage was good enough, the cars were fantastic, but… it was an opportunity missed. Maybe it’s too harsh to compare the home grown effort against the British original. I’ve cautioned against it myself. But, eight shows in, it’s probably okay to do so. This, is how it should be done.

Claudia Karvan was the guest, and well, she’s a babe, so of course this segment went well. Mostly. If Charlie is deemed the best host for the job, I hope he brushes up on his technique during the off season.

Charlie took the new Jaguar XF for a fang. Looks like a nice car, and the piece, while not brilliant, was still pretty good.

We were also treated to another Ford v Holden comparo. This time Charlie and Steve pitted the entry level models against each other. Clearly stung by criticism of their first effort, this time they made a clear decision in the eternal Ford v Holden debate. They chose the Falcon. But, undoing all that good work, Charlie went on a poorly hashed rant about what good cars the local products are and that they are endangered species. That may well be true, but I’m not sure he needed to go to such lengths to make his point.

I can’t let the irony of the ‘What were they thinking?’ wall pass. Steve cooly posted a picture of Clarkson, Hammond and May and posed the question, ‘what were they thinking when they let us make their show’. Quite.

In closing, though, I would say the premiere season of Top Gear Australia has been, overall, both enjoyable and worthwhile. Yes, there are some flaws present, but I love the concept of the show, and I’ll continue to watch the show. The major flaws, for me, centre around the delivery of the three hosts. For the most part they’re quite good, and have improved, but their sometimes forced delivery has not really had all of its rough edges ironed out. Oddly enough, I think one of their best efforts was the first clip they filmed together, the Astra Lawn Bowls piece.

Series 2 has been commissioned, and there will no doubt be a thorough debriefing session now that Series 1 is complete. With any luck, they’ll work on the weaker points of the show, and return to our screens in the first half of 2009 with a new and improved Top Gear Australia. I look forward to finding out.

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Top Gear Australia

Top Gear Australia – Series 1, Episode 7

Top Gear Australia - Series 1, Episode 7

Lots of good content in tonight’s episode, the Nissan GT-R package was the highlight for me. Shooting the dark silver car through Sydney’s city lights at night looked stunning at times. The clips driving past the Ferrari and Porsche dealerships also worked well. Kudos, too, for Steve getting access to the new stretch of Highway for the high speed runs. That would have been ‘grouse’ fun, as Steve would say. The Top Gear Australia guys also stoked the GT-R v 911 fire by setting an ultra quick lap around their test track in a Porsche GT2. Like their UK cousins the GT2 has been faster on their test track than the GT-R. Although, to be fair, the Australian crew reckon the GT-R they used in Episode 1 was speed limited. Not sure that the difference of an unlimited GT-R would make up the 2.62 second gap set by the GT2, however, that’s for another time. For now, pencil in the GT2 as being the quicker car.

Steve got all the toys this episode, also having a fair old crack in an Impreza WRX STi. He was a bit contradictory when complaining of big understeer, while complimenting the car’s ‘massive’ grip. Apart from the understeer, he reckons the car is not too bad, although a lot softer than previous STi offerings. They also set a challenge to outrun Australia’s Army, who were behind the controls of a Tiger helicopter. This segment had some great sequences, but it was not as strong as it could have been and was a bit too contrived. Still, it was entertaining viewing all the same.

Greg Murphy and James Courtney were the guests this week and they were decent enough entertainment. Their lap times in the Bog Standard Car were quite impressive too, some 3 seconds faster than James Morrison, the quickest celeb to date. You could really see where the tin top racers were pushing harder, using all the road, and showing great commitment and aggressive lines around the track.

The show closed out with a Volkswagen Golf 2.0 FSI (petrol) v 2.0 TDI (diesel) comparo with Charlie and Warren. The clip itself was fine, but, again, we were given no real quantification as to the tests they supposedly undertook. We were led to believe the concept behind the test was to see which car would use the least amount of fuel on their test route. However, all we got was a throw away line at the end that the diesel used $5 less fuel, without actually being told how many litres each car used. Oh well…

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Top Gear Australia

Top Gear Australia – Series 1, Episode 6

Top Gear Australia - Series 1, Episode 6

Due to an, erm, error in scheduling I’ve not seen episode 6 as yet, but I will update this post with my thoughts when I have. In the meantime, there’s a few more pics and an SBS press release below…

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Top Gear Australia

Top Gear Australia – Series 1, Episode 3

Top Gear Australia - Series 1, Episode 3

Much better episode this week. Comfortably the show’s best to date. Warren Brown, the glue holding the hosts together, posted an entertaining piece on the BMW X6. Steve Pizzati was confused by the Mercedes-Benz CLK AMG 63 Black Series—is it a GT, a track day special, or just something grey in between? On these two films, in particular, the production values were high, if following the proven Top Gear UK formula of shifting focus and interesting angles. Regardless of that, they were very well made pieces. Although, there is still room for improvement in filming The Stig’s track work.

Not so sure there should always be a “this week’s challenge”, but the $500 paddock basher effort was great Monday night’s viewing. If anything, the segment was a little light on, and one or two more tests for the lads could have easily been carried.

Over the three episodes the weakest segments have been the “Celebrity in a Bog Standard Car”. Sure, these are celebs we’re supposed to be interested in, but they need to stop performing to the crowd, relax a little, and enjoy a quiet chat with Charlie—both would benefit from that. Julia Zemiro, from SBS’s RockWiz program, was not so bad overall, but her constant playing up to the audience was just a bit try hard. She needn’t be like that, she has good on camera charisma—like the hosts’ early efforts, the stars just need to be a bit more natural.

A couple more pics and SBS’s press release after the jump.

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Top Gear Australia

Top Gear Australia – Series 1, Episode 1

Top Gear Australia - Series 1, Episode 1

Top Gear Australia has arrived. It is clear, now, that the Top Gear format has been franchised, in the true sense of the word. Everything from the cast, the theme music, the set, right down to the seating positions of the presenters during the news segment pretty much matches the UK show frame for frame.

On the one hand, you can see why the producers have taken such a formulaic approach. After all, the original format has achieved enviable worldwide success. However, such was the degree of imitation that the viewer almost has a right to feel short changed. We’re only one episode in, granted, but it does seem as though the opportunity to give Top Gear Australia some genuine local flavour has been missed.

Conversely, by taking such a paint it by numbers approach Steve Pizzati, Charlie Cox and Warren Brown (pictured above) have been handed a great foundation from which to build. Indeed, take a look at the first two series of Top Gear UK and you’ll see the original trio needed time to settle in and build the camaraderie many enjoy today. For example, the first piece in the Australian format was a Surf-to-Snow Soft Roader Challenge. The challenge films rely heavily on the chemistry of the leading men and perhaps this was too bold an opening move as, at times, their mateship seemed a bit forced. This not to say the guys weren’t genuine, just that, the audience needs time to learn and familiarise itself with the characters. If my memory serves me correctly, the first challenge on the UK show was the £1500 Porsche Challenge, which aired in Series 5—ample time for Clarkson, Hammond and May to have established their individual niche.

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